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      ‘Very alarming’: US airport screenings see a surge in loaded guns

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      ‘Very alarming’: US airport screenings see a surge in loaded gunsYou can’t carry a bottle of water on board the plane, but plenty of people – knowingly and unknowingly – try to carry gunA Connecticut woman was the first of the week, walking her child through security at New York’s JFK airport with a loaded gun in her purse and “one in the chamber”, as officials put it.Over the following days, an X-ray machine detected a 9mm pistol and ammunition in the hand luggage of a passenger in Philadelphia, a .45 caliber handgun and seven bullets in the carry-on bag of a man boarding a plane at New York’s Westchester airport, and a loaded weapon carried through screening in Wisconsin. ‘The kids need help’: how young people want adults to tackle gun violenceRead moreSecurity officers confiscated two firearms in two days at the Columbus, Ohio international airport. Other arrests for guns turned up by searches were made at terminals in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.And that was just a fraction of the 18 guns confiscated every day on average from passengers traversing flight security across the US – a number that has been rising for years and is likely to continue doing so as firearms sales rise and more states make it easier to carry concealed weapons – even in airports.Two decades after 9/11, thousands of passengers who are otherwise conditioned to remove their shoes, bag their liquids and all too often surrender their dignity at security screenings somehow manage to forget they are carrying an object that is the very reason they are being searched in the first place.Last year, the US Transport Security Administration (TSA) seized 6,542 guns from people about to board planes at 262 airports – a sixfold increase since 2010. Nearly nine in 10 of the weapons were loaded.Jeffrey Price, former assistant director of security at Denver international airport and co-author of a book on aviation security, said he wasn’t surprised.“One of our unique American traits is the number of people who purchase a weapon and forget they even have the thing with them. It seems like every time there’s another active shooter incident, a lot more people go out and buy guns because they feel scared,” he said.“A lot of those people who buy a gun in the heat of the moment, they toss it in their laptop bag or in their purse, and then they forget they have it. Next thing you know, they’re at the airport and oh, my gosh, I forgot I put that in there. Which in itself is pretty scary because it could mean they’re leaving a bag lying around at home with a gun in for a kid to get to.”The TSA says that passengers claiming to forget they even have a gun is the most common explanation and is frequently accepted by the police. Although officials were more skeptical about a man who blamed his mother for packing a rifle found in his bag at Baltimore airport.Price said other factors are also at work.”There’s also [a] certain percentage of people that think because they’ve been issued a permit (to carry a gun) they can carry it anywhere, anytime, which is not true. And then you’ve got people that just think they can slip it through. The TSA won’t notice,” he said.They would include the passengers caught trying to smuggle guns stuffed inside a raw chicken, jars of peanut butter, a PlayStation and an arm sling.Some cities and states press criminal charges, and the offending individual is marched out the airport in handcuffs. But it is not uncommon in gun-friendly parts of the country for a passenger to be allowed to put their weapon in their car and return to board their flight.Atlanta airport tops the gun seizure table with more than one a day found in passenger hand luggage.“It is very alarming,” Balram Bheodari, manager of Atlanta airport, told a congressional hearing last year about the record number of guns seized on his watch. “Eighty-six percent of those weapons had a round in the chamber or a loaded magazine in the weapon. Very, very alarming.”Bheodari had to contend with an incident 15 months ago in which a passenger “lunged” for a bag as a TSA agent began to search it and accidentally fired a gun inside, sending people around him diving for the floor and shutting down flight departures. The airport put out a message assuring passengers “there was not an active shooter”.The man ran out the airport with the gun but left his boarding pass behind and was arrested three days later.It was perhaps no surprise that Atlanta leads the nation. In 2014, Georgia’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a law pushed by the National Rifle Association allowing people to carry loaded guns in the state’s airports.Georgia was also one of 10 states to pass laws over the past couple of years no longer requiring a permit to carry a concealed firearm. Tennessee was another. The state’s TSA’s security director, Steve Wood, drew a direct line between weaker gun regulation and weapons at airports.“Since the implementation of new gun laws in the state last year, we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of firearms brought to Tennessee security checkpoints,” he said.There is also the disturbing question of how many guns go undetected.In 2015, ABC News revealed that the TSA sent undercover investigators through airport checkpoints carrying real guns and fake bombs. Security officers only discovered three of the 70 smuggled items.The TSA’s director was sacked. The Department of Homeland Security promised reforms but two years later security agents were still failing to detect about 80% of weapons in tests because of a mix of inadequate equipment and human failings.Since then the TSA has stopped talking publicly about such tests of its system.Ban on marijuana users owning guns is unconstitutional, judge rulesRead morePrice said travelers should assume that some guns get on to planes.“It’s really a matter of deterrence. Can we catch enough prohibited items to make it not worth a terrorist or criminal’s effort to try and get through the system with one? We’re never gonna catch everything. That some guns will get onto planes is just one of those things we have to accept if we’re going to accept aviation as part of our daily lives,” he said.Which makes it something of a miracle that no one has been shot accidentally mid-flight.“It is kind of amazing,” said Price. “One of the few that did go off accidentally was when a US Airways pilot, who was authorized to carry on a gun on the flight deck, fired off a round as he was putting it back in its holster.”The pilot said he was trying to stow the gun for landing when it went off, blowing a hole in the cockpit just below the window.TopicsUS gun controlGeorgiaAirline industryUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden pleads with Congress to pass gun control after six killed in Mississippi

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      Biden pleads with Congress to pass gun control after six killed in MississippiPresident says ‘thoughts and prayers aren’t enough’ after Richard Crum, 52, suspected of carrying out mass shooting in Arkabutla Joe Biden is once again pleading for Congress to pass meaningful gun control after a man shot six people to death – including his ex-wife and stepfather – at three different locations in a small, rural Mississippi community on Friday.“Enough,” the president’s statement said, noting that there had been at least 73 shootings in which at least four victims were wounded or killed in the first 48 days of this year.Michigan professor calls for tighter gun control after students fatally shotRead moreInvoking a phrase that pro-gun advocates often use to deflect from discussing action after mass shootings, Biden’s statement added: “Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough. Gun violence is an epidemic and Congress must act now.“We need – need – commonsense gun law reforms.”Biden specifically mentioned requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning firearms with high capacities for ammunition, prohibiting domestic abusers from legally having weapons regardless of their relationships to those they have preyed on, requiring the safe storage of guns, and allowing firearms manufacturers to face civil liability for “knowingly [putting] weapons of war on our streets”.“We owe action to American communities being torn apart by gun violence,” Biden said.Biden’s remarks came after authorities alleged that 52-year-old Richard Crum unleashed a deadly rampage in Arkabutla, an unincorporated community with fewer than 300 people in Mississippi’s Tate county.Armed with a shotgun and two handguns, Crum, authorities said, went to a convenience store about 11am on Friday and fatally shot a 59-year-old man named Chris Boyce, who was sitting in the driver’s seat of a pickup truck outside. Boyce’s brother was sitting next to him but ran away without being physically harmed.As Tate county sheriff’s deputies arrived at the store, they received emergency calls from the home of Crum’s 60-year-old former wife, Debra. Crum had shot her to death shortly after returning from the office of a doctor treating her for a stroke she suffered recently, according to the local TV news station WMC, based about 45 miles north in Memphis, Tennessee.Debra Crum’s husband, George Drane, described to WMC how he tried to – but couldn’t – fight off the attacker.“I wrestled with him, and I lost, as you can see,” Drane said, with his head wrapped in a bandage and holding back tears. “We had a good day at the doctor’s office. We ate some soup when we got home and we were going to go into town.”Deputies tracked Crum down to the home of his stepfather, 73-year-old George McCain. Crum allegedly shot dead McCain, his stepfather’s 78-year-old sister Lynda McCain, and two repair workers who happened to be there: John Rorie, 59, and Charles Manuel, 76.One of the murdered repair workers was in the road, and the other was in a car, authorities said. Police said they found Crum inside a car, and he was arrested after surrendering to them, though not before businesses and a school had to temporarily lock down.The local coroner’s office said Friday that five of the dead were from Coldwater, a community that neighbors Arkabutla. Boyce was from Lakeland, Florida.Arkabutla sits on a reservoir that is a popular fishing and recreation spot. It is also known for being the home town of James Earl Jones, the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winning actor.The local sheriff, Brad Lance, said investigators had not immediately determined a motive. Lance could not recall any prior encounters between his agency and Crum, who is facing charges of capital murder and was being held without bond.Later on Friday, Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden were grieving with the families of the victims, who were murdered four days after three were killed in an unrelated shooting on the campus of Michigan State University.“We are … mourning … as we have for far too many Americans,” the president’s statement said.Biden last year signed bipartisan legislation passed by Congress that expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers while funding mental health and violence intervention programs.But mass shootings persist despite what was hailed as the first major firearms safety bill to pass Congress in nearly three decades. The president has long argued that much more must be done to curb gun violence in the US.Chances of more gun control measures passing on Capitol Hill seem slim, however. Biden’s fellow Democrats hold only a slender numerical advantage in the Senate, and their Republican opponents have a thin majority in the House of Representatives.TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsMississippiUS gun controlnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans blocked gun reform laws a year before Michigan State shooting

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      Republicans blocked gun reform laws a year before Michigan State shootingDemocrats attempted to advance bills requiring secure storage of firearms and expanding background checks for gun buyers Less than a year before a gunman attacked Michigan State University’s campus on Monday, killing three students and injuring five, Republican legislators in the state rejected an opportunity to change gun regulations.In the aftermath of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Michigan Democrats attempted to advance bills requiring secure storage of firearms and expanding background checks for gun buyers. Six months earlier, a shooting at Oxford high school near Detroit had also reinvigorated Democratic efforts to change Michigan gun laws. But the gun bills were blocked by Republicans, who controlled both chambers of the state legislature. ‘The kids need help’: how young people want adults to tackle gun violenceRead moreAfter years of thwarted efforts, Michigan Democrats may finally be able to act. In November, the party gained majorities in both chambers of the Michigan legislature for the first time in nearly 40 years, giving them a chance to reconsider the gun proposals that languished under Republican control.It remains unclear whether the bills previously considered by the legislature might have prevented the mass shooting at Michigan State. Authorities identified the shooter as 43-year-old Anthony McRae, but they declined to offer details on the weapon used in the attack or a potential motive.For many Michiganders, the shooting stirred up painful memories. Just 15 months earlier, a teenager used a handgun purchased by his father to fatally shoot four students at Oxford high school, outside of Detroit. Local media reports indicate that some survivors of the Oxford shooting, as well as one survivor of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, were on Michigan State’s campus Monday.“We have children in Michigan who are living through their second school shooting in under a year and a half,” Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Michigan, said on Tuesday. “If this is not a wake-up call to do something, I don’t know what is.”But Michigan Democrats have faced fierce opposition in their efforts to change state gun laws. Republicans consistently blocked bills aimed at expanding background checks and banning the large-capacity magazines frequently used in mass shootings. Even relatively modest proposals, such as mandating safe storage of firearms or enacting a “red flag law” to allow courts to seize guns from those deemed to be dangerous, failed in the Republican-controlled legislature.Court records show that, in 2019, McRae faced a felony charge for carrying a concealed weapon and a misdemeanor charge for possessing a loaded firearm in or upon a vehicle. He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to probation. The incident raised questions about whether McRae should have been denied access to a firearm prior to the Monday shooting.“We cannot keep living like this,” Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer said at a press conference on Tuesday. “Our children are scared to go to school. People feel unsafe in their houses of worship, or local stores. As parents, we tell our kids it’s going to be OK. But the truth is words are not good enough. We must act and we will.”Whitmer has already indicated that addressing gun violence would be a top priority for her administration, and the Michigan State shooting appears to have added a sense of urgency to Democrats’ efforts. As they mourned the young lives lost on Monday, Democratic legislators pledged that they would move quickly to pass new gun regulations.“Even the basics will make a difference – we need universal background checks, safe storage laws and red flag laws,” Democratic state senator Darrin Camilleri said. “Of course we need more, but let’s start with this … Tomorrow, we go back to the Capitol and get to work to create change.”In a statement offering condolences to the Michigan State community, Joe Biden also reiterated his call to enact a nationwide ban on assault weapons and require background checks for all gun sales. Last year, Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers and provided funding for mental health and violence intervention programs, but he said more must be done to address gun safety. Underscoring the scope of the issue, Biden noted that the Michigan tragedy came one day before the country marked five years since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, when 17 people were killed.“Too many American communities have been devastated by gun violence,” Biden said. “Action is what we owe to those grieving today in Michigan and across America.”Despite the urgent demands for action, Democrats still face significant challenges in changing gun laws. At the federal level, Republicans now control the House of Representatives, making it easier for them to block gun safety bills. In Michigan, Democrats hold narrow majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, so party leaders will have little wiggle room as they attempt to enact new gun regulations.But gun safety advocates remain undaunted, promising that they will keep working until lawmakers act.“No one should have to fear for their life while walking on campus. No one should have to text their loved ones goodbye,” said Annie Heitmeier, a third year student at Michigan State and a volunteer with the gun safety group Students Demand Action.“We won’t stand for any more inaction from our legislators because no one should ever experience the terror and fear that we lived through last night.”TopicsMichiganUS gun controlUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      California gun laws can’t stop mass shootings without federal support

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      AnalysisCalifornia gun laws can’t stop mass shootings without federal supportJoan E GreveThe Golden State will struggle to stop mass shootings and protect citizens until uniform federal laws on firearms are signed The recent mass shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay have brought devastation, outrage and shock to Californians. As the state grieves the loss of 19 residents, one question continues to arise: how could this happen in the state with some of the strongest gun laws in the US?Victims named in mass shooting at Half Moon Bay mushroom farms in CaliforniaRead moreCalifornia’s gun laws include bans on the military-style assault weapons and large-capacity magazines that have been used in many mass shootings. It is one of just two states, along with New Jersey, to receive an “A” rating from the gun safety group Giffords, based on the strength of its firearm regulations.Gun rights proponents have cited the two shootings as evidence of the ineffectiveness of California’s laws, but groups like Giffords fiercely reject those arguments. California’s firearm mortality rate has declined dramatically in the years since tougher regulations were enacted, gun safety groups note.But in a nation where firearms outnumber people, the groups say, such horrific attacks will continue without a coordinated federal response to gun violence.“California is one state of 50,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice-president for law and policy at the gun safety group Everytown. “There’s just no question that strong, uniform federal laws are substantially better than a mixed bag of strong and weak state laws.”‘Gun violence across America requires stronger action’Research indicates that California’s many gun laws have proven quite effective in reducing the number of deaths caused by firearms. According to the gun safety group Brady, California’s rate of firearm mortality rate declined by 55% between 1993 and 2017, compared to a decrease of 14% across the rest of the US in the same time period. Advocates credit the decline to California’s gun regulations, a number of which went into effect in the early 1990s.“California has transformed itself in the past generation,” said Ari Freilich, state policy director at Giffords. “People came together time and again to strengthen gun safety laws [and] learn from tragedy.”California now has 107 gun laws on the books, more than any other US state. In addition to the bans on military-style assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, California has a ban on gun silencers. Like 18 other US states, California has a “red flag law” that allows authorities to seize guns owned by those deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. In situations of domestic violence or workplace harassment, California residents can petition a court for a restraining order to have firearms taken away from their partner or employee.The gun used in the Monterey Park shooting appears to fall under the state’s definition of an “assault weapon”, so it is unclear how the attacker was able to purchase the firearm in 1999, when California had already banned such weapons. The sale of large-capacity magazines like the one used in Monterey Park is now illegal in California, although that state ban may not have been in effect when the shooter purchased the magazine. Authorities have said that the semi-automatic weapon used in Half Moon Bay was legally purchased by the gunman.Unfortunately, a gun violence restraining order was not issued before the attacks in Monterey Park or Half Moon Bay. As Freilich said, an important piece of lawmakers’ work must be ensuring that citizens know their legal options so they can be prepared to respond if they suspect potential gun violence.“Sometimes it’s making sure the right judge files the right paperwork at the right time,” Freilich said. “That’s the kind of unglamorous work that will save a victim’s life.”In addition to the need for more education around existing laws, Giffords released a memo outlining further legislative steps that California can take to reduce gun violence. The proposals include creating a gun violence prevention and victim recovery fund and strengthening restrictions on the sale and marketing of ghost guns, which are untraceable firearms often assembled at home from kits bought online.Even if California legislators can enact those policies, the state still faces significant challenges. The conservative-leaning US supreme court has displayed its willingness to challenge state gun policies, ruling last year to strike down a New York law that placed strict regulations on carrying firearms in public.‘Tragedy upon tragedy’: why 39 US mass shootings already this year is just the startRead moreAnd the looser gun laws of neighboring states pose another challenge. Many California residents can easily travel to Arizona, where assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not banned.“In this country, a state’s gun laws are only as strong as its closest neighbor with weak gun laws,” Suplina said. “It’s important to remember just how easily weapons are bought and sold in neighboring states.”That reality underscores the urgent need to pass more gun regulations at the federal level, Suplina and his allies argue. Last week, Joe Biden once again called on Congress to swiftly pass a nationwide assault weapons ban that could help prevent mass shootings in the future.“Even as we await further details on these shootings,” Biden said, “we know the scourge of gun violence across America requires stronger action.”‘California has the strictest gun laws’Additional federal action on gun safety currently seems unlikely now that Republicans, who show little appetite for tackling the issue, have regained control of the House.The gun lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill have embraced a markedly different perspective on the lessons to be learned from the most recent tragedies.In the days after the shootings that rocked his home state of California, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy dismissed questions about the possibility of enacting more federal regulations to combat gun violence.“Having lived in California my entire life,” McCarthy said last week, “California has the strictest gun laws there are and apparently that did not work in this situation.”Suplina attacked such talking points, which often surface in the wake of mass shootings that occur in liberal-leaning states, as “straw man arguments”.“Advocates on the other side like to point to every aberration and say that that must mean that nothing is working, but we don’t do that in other areas,” Suplina said. “We don’t say that seatbelts don’t work because there’s an accident in the car that leads to a fatality.”Gun reformers feel history is on their side despite bleak outlook in CongressRead moreDespite widespread Republican opposition, Biden was able to sign one gun safety bill, the Bipartisan Safer Communities, into law last year. The bill expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers and invested in mental health and violence intervention programs, but advocates acknowledge that the law does not go far enough.Without a more robust, coordinated federal response to gun violence, every American state remains vulnerable to attacks, advocates say.“California has the strongest gun safety laws in the country overall and some of the weakest gun safety laws in the western world,” Freilich said. “A lot of folks wonder how this could happen in California. Well, there are more than a million guns that were legally bought and sold in California last year.”Tragedies like those in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay remind Americans of that painful truth, Suplina said. As California mourns another 19 lives taken by guns, this moment could serve as a call to arms for the many Americans seeking change.“When we go through calamities like California has recently, more people step up to do more at the local, state and federal level,” Suplina said. “There really aren’t any communities that are immune from gun violence in America. And more and more people are taking action to do something about it.”TopicsUS gun controlCaliforniaNew JerseyGun crimeUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      America continues to sacrifice its babies to the altar of guns | Jill Filipovic

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      America continues to sacrifice its babies to the altar of gunsJill FilipovicWhy does America allow civilians to amass weapons of war, but not to live free of a constant threat of random violence? Three days. Three mass shootings. One state. Nineteen dead.These numbers are stark enough that, in a sane society, they’d engender outrage and then change. But this is the United States, and when it comes to our tolerance of mass gun deaths, we are truly exceptional. Thanks to our feckless supreme court and the Republican party death cult, even the most progressive parts of the country have no real ability to crack down on guns and keep their residents safe. We are collectively stuck living in a dangerous, weapon-happy dystopia, all because reactionary, fearful conservatives want to cosplay as tough guys with deadly toys.In three days, 19 people were killed and many more injured in two back-to-back mass shootings of mostly Asian people in California, over a weekend that should have been a celebration of Lunar New Year. One shooter, a 72-year-old man, opened fire at a dance hall frequented by senior citizens in Monterey Park, killing 11 and wounding nine. Another, a 66-year-old man, killed seven at a farm near Half Moon Bay. And finally, in what is sadly representative of typical mass shootings in the United States, a shooter killed one and injured four in what newspapers are describing as a “gun battle” in Oakland.That tally doesn’t even count last week, when six people were murdered in what police say was a cartel-style execution and likely a gang-related killing. The dead include a 16-year-old girl and her 10-month-old baby.In the first three weeks of 2023, there have been 39 mass shootings in America. Gun violence is now the leading killer of American children.What is there to say about a society that sacrifices its babies at the altar of firearms? What kind of “freedom” allows civilians to amass weapons designed to exact maximal damage on the human body, but doesn’t give citizens the basic right to go to the movies, the shops, schools, places of worship and even their living rooms or front porches without facing down the pervasive threat of deadly and random violence? How do you reason with people who continue to claim, in the face of all evidence and the very fact that America is the only nation not at war that experiences this level of death and destruction from guns, that guns are not the problem?The truth is that most Americans, including many who vote Republican, are sick of living like this. A whopping 71% of Americans want to see stricter gun laws, and significant numbers live in fear: nearly half say it’s likely that they will personally be a victim of gun violence at some point.In some liberal states, including California, legislators have acted. California’s gun laws are still remarkably lax compared with the rest of the world – there is not, for example, the kind of licensing process for a gun that any teenager needs to go through in order to drive a car – but the state nevertheless is on the stricter end of the deranged American spectrum: California has red flag laws, which allow police to seize guns from people deemed threatening; a ban on assault-style weapons; and magazine limits. The state has also, of course, been repeatedly sued by gun enthusiasts who want unfettered access to any weapon of their choosing, and believe even these small regulations are unreasonable.But California is not an island, and American states do not have enforced borders between them. There’s nothing stopping someone from buying a gun in a more conservative state and bringing it into a liberal one. This is exactly what happens in many cities with the highest rates of gun violence. Chicago, for example, sits in a state with strict gun laws (Illinois), but right next door to one that is basically a weaponry free-for-all (Indiana). One study found that 60% of illegal guns found in Chicago came from outside Illinois, with one in five from Indiana.States are also increasingly limited in what they can do about gun violence, thanks to a supreme court that has in the last 15 years radically revised a century of jurisprudence on guns to read into the constitution a ridiculous and ahistorical interpretation of the second amendment. Over and over again, when states try to pass the kind of commonsense gun legislation that voters want, rightwing gun groups sue; too often, they win.The scourge of gun violence in America remains not because Americans are an inherently violent people or because there are too many “bad guys” running around. The scourge of gun violence in America remains because the Republican party insists that it remain – because the Republican party works overtime to ensure that deadly weapons proliferate, does close to nothing to prevent even small children from being gunned down at school, and insists on appointing federal judges who will allow unlicensed and untrained citizens to amass weapons of war.What can you call this other than a party that embraces and perpetuates a culture of death, and shrugs off the mass murder of even its youngest and most vulnerable? Can a society reasonably call itself civilized, let alone great or free or “pro-life”, when it voluntarily allows its children to be slaughtered and calls it liberty?Liberal states can certainly do more to decrease gun violence, including ramping up enforcement and, crucially, requiring a license to have a gun. Unfortunately, however, we are hamstrung by a minority of barbaric, cruel and gun-crazed countrymen, and the party that represents them. Until the Republican party and its core supporters decide that they’re tired of living in a country where grandmas get gunned down while dancing and kindergartners are murdered in their classrooms, we will all be forced to live in a nation that offers nothing more than thoughts and prayers as the bullets fly and the body count mounts.
      Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness
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      Judge concludes hearing on Trump grand jury report without a decision – as it happened

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      At the conclusion of a 90-minute hearing, an Atlanta judge did not rule on whether to release a special grand jury’s report into the campaign from Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia.“This is not simple. I think the fact that we had to discuss this for 90 minutes shows that it is somewhat extraordinary,” Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney said. “Partly what’s extraordinary is what’s at issue here, the alleged interference with a presidential election.”“My proposal is that I think about this a little bit and then contact both groups, the district attorney’s office and the intervenors, if I’ve got specific questions for which I’d like more input,” McBurney said, adding that if he does decide to make the report public, he will give notice before doing so. “No one’s going to wake up with the court having disclosed the report on the front page of the newspaper.”Several media organizations had asked McBurney to release the document, which could lay out whether the jurors believe Trump and his allies committed crimes when they unsuccessfully pressured officials in Georgia to prevent Biden from winning the state’s electoral votes in the 2020 election.Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney who began the investigation, argued against the report’s release, saying, “We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate at this time to have this report released.”She also added that “decision are imminent” on the report’s findings.A judge in Atlanta heard arguments over whether to release a special grand jury’s report into Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in the state three years ago, but made no decision. In Washington, lawmakers are digesting news that classified documents turned up at former vice president Mike Pence’s residence in Indiana, as they have at properties linked to Biden and Trump. Will attorney general Merrick Garland appoint yet another special counsel to investigate the matter? Will documents be discovered in the hands of even more former White House occupants? It’s too soon to say, but one thing’s for sure: this story won’t be going away anytime soon.Here’s what else happened today:
      The United States is considering providing tanks to Ukraine, in a bid both to help its defense against Russia and to convince Germany to send its own armor.
      A Senate committee questioned Ticketmaster executives in a hearing announced after the sale of Taylor Swift tickets turned into a fiasco.
      Biden called for an assault weapons ban following another mass shooting in California.
      Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said he backs an effort to look at overhauling the government’s rules around classified material.
      With not one, but three former White House occupants in hot water for having stashes of classified documents that they should not have, some in Washington think it’s time to take a look at how the government manages its secrets.That includes the Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, who said he supports a review of the government’s classification system. Here are his brief comments, from CNN:Schumer says he backs Sen. Peters’ look at bipartisan legislation to overhaul federal record-keeping laws. Adds that oversight will be done by special counsels — even as the House is trying to probe Biden’s handling of classified records pic.twitter.com/ykufsTmq1M— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 24, 2023
      There has been much reacting on Capitol Hill to news that Mike Pence had classified documents at his home. Republican lawmakers have generally defended Pence, saying they doubt he did anything wrong. Senator Lindsey Graham is among that group, but he also seemed to indicate that he believed Joe Biden made the same mistake with the secret materials found at his properties:Here’s the video: pic.twitter.com/6QJI5N05aV— Ahtra Elnashar (@AhtraElnashar) January 24, 2023
      Meanwhile, the Senate intelligence committee is planning to meet on Wednesday with director of national intelligence Avril Haines, and Republican senator Marco Rubio said the classified document scandal is sure to come up:Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on Senate Intel, told us that his committee had already planned to meet Wednesday with Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, and they plan to press her about the handling of classified documents.“No way it doesn’t come up”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 24, 2023
      Separately, attorney general Merrick Garland was asked about the affair, including whether he would name a special counsel to investigate the documents at Pence’s house, as he did for those found at Biden and Donald Trump’s properties.His answer was no surprise:AG Merrick Garland says he is “unable to comment” when asked about classified documents found at former VP Mike Pence’s home, if a special counsel will be named, and if a policy change is needed after Biden, Trump, and Pence all had classified materials at their homes. pic.twitter.com/qjHjGAfKc1— The Recount (@therecount) January 24, 2023
      As chair of the House oversight committee, James Comer is a leader of the Republican investigation campaign against the Biden administration – including the president’s possession of classified documents.He has sent demands to multiple government agencies for more details about the documents found in the president’s residence and former office, and who may have had access to them. But when news broke that Republican former vice president Mike Pence also had classified material in his home, Comer released a statement displaying a softer touch. Here’s what he had to say:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Former Vice President Mike Pence reached out today about classified documents found at his home in Indiana. He has agreed to fully cooperate with congressional oversight and any questions we have about the matter. Former Vice President Pence’s transparency stands in stark contrast to Biden White House staff who continue to withhold information from Congress and the American people.A judge in Atlanta heard arguments over whether to release a special grand jury’s report into Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in the state three years ago, but made no decision. In Washington, lawmakers are digesting news that classified documents turned up at former vice president Mike Pence’s residence in Indiana, as they have at properties linked to Biden and Trump. Will attorney general Merrick Garland appoint yet another special counsel to investigate the matter? Will documents be discovered in the hands of even more former White House occupants? It’s too soon to say, but one thing’s for sure: this story won’t be going away anytime soon.Here’s what else has been going on today:
      The United States is considering providing tanks to Ukraine, in a bid both to help its defense against Russia and to convince Germany to send its own armor.
      A Senate committee questioned Ticketmaster executives in a hearing announced after the sale of Taylor Swift tickets turned into a fiasco.
      Biden called for an assault weapons ban following another mass shooting in California.
      At the conclusion of a 90-minute hearing, an Atlanta judge did not rule on whether to release a special grand jury’s report into the campaign from Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia.“This is not simple. I think the fact that we had to discuss this for 90 minutes shows that it is somewhat extraordinary,” Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney said. “Partly what’s extraordinary is what’s at issue here, the alleged interference with a presidential election.”“My proposal is that I think about this a little bit and then contact both groups, the district attorney’s office and the intervenors, if I’ve got specific questions for which I’d like more input,” McBurney said, adding that if he does decide to make the report public, he will give notice before doing so. “No one’s going to wake up with the court having disclosed the report on the front page of the newspaper.”Several media organizations had asked McBurney to release the document, which could lay out whether the jurors believe Trump and his allies committed crimes when they unsuccessfully pressured officials in Georgia to prevent Biden from winning the state’s electoral votes in the 2020 election.Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney who began the investigation, argued against the report’s release, saying, “We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate at this time to have this report released.”She also added that “decision are imminent” on the report’s findings.Just two weeks ago, Mike Pence told CBS news he was “confident” no classified materials were taken when he left the White House in January 2021:As documents found in an office used by Pres. Biden are in the spotlight, fmr. VP Mike Pence tells CBS News’ @costareports he remains “confident” his staff ensured no classified materials were taken from his time in the White House and remain in his possession. pic.twitter.com/KntHXWNXTC— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 11, 2023
      CBS News reports Mike Pence discovered he had classified documents after an aide found the materials “in recent weeks”:SCOOP: Lawyer and longtime Pence aide Matt Morgan, based in Indiana, found the docs after reviewing them at Pence’s direction in recent weeks, per 2 people familiar @CBSNews— Robert Costa (@costareports) January 24, 2023
      Politico has obtained more details of the classified documents discovered at Mike Pence’s residence in Indiana.According to a letter from Pence’s attorney Greg Jacobs to the National Archives, the FBI sent agents to the former vice president’s home on the night of 19 January to collect classified documents found in his safe. Pence wasn’t in town at that time – he was in Washington DC for the anti-abortion March for Life. Jacobs also said he would turn over four boxes containing “copies of Administration papers” to the Archives on 23 January for them to review for secret material:NEWS: DOJ sent FBI agents to retrieve a “small number” of classified documents from Mike Pence’s Indiana residence last week, while Pence was in DC at the March for Life.Read the Jan. 18 + 22 letters from PENCE to NARA here: https://t.co/I1zCvXdn05https://t.co/VK2YCMYPuf pic.twitter.com/hVbxLrwGUu— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 24, 2023
      Back in Georgia, Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis told the court she does not want the special grand jury’s report released.“We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate at this time to have this report released,” Willis said in arguments before judge Robert McBurney.Willis is expected to use the report to decide whether to bring charges against Donald Trump’s allies or perhaps the former president himself over the attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s election win in Georgia. She told McBurney that “decisions are imminent.”A lawyer for former vice-president Mike Pence found classified documents at his residence in Indiana, CNN reports.The discovery at Pence’s Carmel, Indiana, home comes as the justice department investigates government secrets found at Joe Biden’s former office in Washington DC and residence in Delaware, as well as Donald Trump’s possession of similar material at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Attorney general Merrick Garland has appointed special counsels to handle both men’s cases.Citing multiple sources, CNN reports that the attorney for Pence, who served as Trump’s vice-president from 2017 to 2021, gave the documents found at his residence to the FBI.Judge Robert McBurney has convened the Fulton county superior court hearing that will decide whether to release the report of the special grand jury that investigated Trump’s election meddling campaign in Georgia.Follow this blog for the latest, or you can watch the live feed embedded above.Republican senator Lindsey Graham was one of the witnesses called by the special grand jury investigating the election meddling effort in Georgia.Georgia’s top election official Brad Raffensperger said that shortly after the 2020 election, the South Carolina lawmaker called him to ask if it was possible to throw out absentee ballots. Graham waged an unsuccessful court battle to avoid testifying before the special grand jury, before finally appearing in November.CNN reports he does not have much to say about the potential release of the panel’s report:Asked Lindsey Graham — who testified in this case — about the possibility the judge could release report from special grand jury probing Trump effort to overturn election. “Whatever the judge does will be fine,” he said. https://t.co/EE9qOc2Hz7— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 24, 2023 More

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      Biden urges Congress to reinstate assault weapons ban after latest shooting – live

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      A familiar cycle occurs after American mass shootings, and by all appearances, it’s happening again after the twin massacres in California.It goes something like this: multiple people are killed by a gunman, as happened in California’s Monterey Park on Saturday and Half Moon Bay on Monday. Joe Biden calls for new restrictions on gun ownership, arguing they could have prevented the killer from getting their hands on a weapon. He’s backed by most, if not all Democrats in Congress, but rejected by most, if not all, Republicans. The demand goes nowhere.The one exception to that came after last year’s shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, when Democrats managed to win enough Republican votes to get a package of modest gun control measures through Congress. But the legislation was not the ban on assault weapons Biden called on Congress pass, a demand he repeated in the months since, as mass shootings continued. With Republicans now controlling the House of Representatives, it seems even less likely such a measure will get approved.The Senate judiciary committee has begun a hearing on the live event ticketing industry, after Ticketmaster last year bungled sales of tickets to megastar Taylor Swfit’s latest tour.“The issues within America’s ticketing industry were made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase tickets for Taylor Swift’s new tour, but these problems are not new,” Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar said in a statement last week announcing the hearing. “For too long, consumers have faced high fees, long waits, and website failures, and Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company faces inadequate pressure to innovate and improve.”“American consumers deserve the benefit of competition in every market, from grocery chains to concert venues,” her Republican counterpart senator Mike Lee said.When ticket’s for Swift’s first tour in five years went on sale in November, Ticketmaster’s website crashed, leaving customers for “presale” tickets stranded in line and forcing the cancellation of its public sale. The justice department is reportedly investigating the company in an inquiry that started before the problems with the Swift tour. Ticketmaster meanwhile spent nearly $1.3m on lobbying in 2021, targeting the justice department and Congress’s efforts to regulate its business.You can watch the hearing live here.Donald Trump’s foe today – and potentially for many months to come – is an Atlanta prosecutor with a history of taking on organized crime, the Guardian’s Carlisa N. Johnson reports:An Atlanta prosecutor appears ready to use the same Georgia statute to prosecute Donald Trump that she used last year to charge dozens of gang members and well-known rappers who allegedly conspired to commit violent crime.Fani Willis was elected Fulton county district attorney just days before the conclusion of the 2020 presidential election. But as she celebrated her promotion, Trump and his allies set in motion a flurry of unfounded claims of voter fraud in Georgia, the state long hailed as a Republican stronghold for local and national elections.Willis assumed office on 1 January 2021, becoming the first Black woman in the position. The next day, according to reports, Trump called rad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, urging him to “find” the nearly 12,000 votes he needed to secure a victory and overturn the election results.The following month, Willis launched an investigation into Trump’s interference in the state’s general election. Now, in a hearing on Tuesday, the special purpose grand jury and the presiding judge will decide whether to release to the public the final report and findings of the grand jury that was seated to investigate Trump and his allies.Could Trump be charged for racketeering? A Georgia prosecutor thinks soRead moreToday may be a big day for Donald Trump, and not in a good way, the Guardian’s Chris McGreal reports:A judge in Atlanta will hear legal arguments today to determine if he should make public a Georgia grand jury’s report into whether former president Donald Trump committed criminal offences when he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.Before the special purpose grand jury was dissolved two weeks ago after months of hearings, its members recommended releasing its findings while the Fulton county district attorney who launched the investigation, Fani Willis, decides whether to press charges against Trump.Legal scholars have said they believe Trump is “at substantial risk of prosecution” in Georgia over his attempts to strong-arm officials into fixing the election in his favour when it looked as if the state might decide the outcome of the presidential election. At least 18 other people have been told they also potentially face prosecution, including Trump’s close ally and lawyer, the former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani.The Fulton county superior court judge who oversaw the grand jury, Robert McBurney, will hear from Willis but not lawyers for Trump, who said on Monday that they will not participate in the hearing. They said that Willis had not sought to interview the former president for the investigation.“Therefore, we can assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump,” the lawyers said in a statement.Trump and allies face legal jeopardy in Georgia over 2020 election interferenceRead moreWhile mass shootings such as those that occurred over the past days in California may generate headlines and calls for action, the Guardian’s Oliver Holmes reports gun violence is distressingly common in the United States:Two horrific killings separated by just a few days have shaken California, but such nightmarish mass shootings cannot be considered abnormal in the US. With a week still left in January, this year there have already been 39 mass shootings across the country, five of them in California.Reports from the Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit research group, show the predictability of American mass shootings. Nearly 70 people have been shot dead in them so far in 2023, according to their data – which classifies a mass shooting as any armed attack in which at least four people are injured or killed, not including the perpetrator.Broadened out to include all deaths from gun violence, not including suicides, 1,214 people have been killed before the end of the first month of this year, including 120 children. That is likely to increase to tens of thousands by the end of 2023 – the figure for 2022 is 20,200.In comparison, the latest data from the UK showed that in the course of an entire year ending in March 2022, 31 people were killed by firearms. The UK’s population is 67 million to the US’s 333 million.‘Tragedy upon tragedy’: why 39 US mass shootings already this year is just the startRead moreA familiar cycle occurs after American mass shootings, and by all appearances, it’s happening again after the twin massacres in California.It goes something like this: multiple people are killed by a gunman, as happened in California’s Monterey Park on Saturday and Half Moon Bay on Monday. Joe Biden calls for new restrictions on gun ownership, arguing they could have prevented the killer from getting their hands on a weapon. He’s backed by most, if not all Democrats in Congress, but rejected by most, if not all, Republicans. The demand goes nowhere.The one exception to that came after last year’s shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, when Democrats managed to win enough Republican votes to get a package of modest gun control measures through Congress. But the legislation was not the ban on assault weapons Biden called on Congress pass, a demand he repeated in the months since, as mass shootings continued. With Republicans now controlling the House of Representatives, it seems even less likely such a measure will get approved.Good morning, US politics blog readers. Joe Biden has called for Congress to again pass a ban on assault weapons, after seven people were killed in a mass shooting on Monday on the outskirts of the California town of Half Moon Bay. That was just days after a separate shooter killed 11 people in Monterey Park, a suburb of Los Angeles. Congress passed an assault weapons ban in 1994 that expired 10 years later, and Biden has repeatedly called for renewing it, including after the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas last year. But many Republicans in Congress oppose such a measure, and just as in the aftermath of previous mass shootings, it seems unlikely to pass.Here’s what we can expect to happen today:
      A judge in Atlanta will at 12 pm eastern time convene a hearing to determine whether a special grand jury’s report into Donald Trump’s campaign to meddle in Georgia’s 2020 election outcome will be made public, upping the legal stakes for the former president.
      Biden will hold a White House meeting with Democratic congressional leaders at 3 pm, and a reception for new lawmakers at 5:20 pm.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre will brief reporters at 1:30 pm, who will likely ask her questions abut the Biden classified document scandal that she will not answer. More

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      in US Politics

      What hopes for gun reform now Republicans have House control?

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      What hopes for gun reform now Republicans have House control?State-level victories such as those Illinois and New York likely to become crucial in the battle against gun violence The Illinois capitol was a site of celebration on Tuesday, as state legislators passed a ban on military-style firearms. The legislation made Illinois the ninth US state to enact a ban on such weapons, which have been used in many of the country’s most devastating mass shootings.“Illinois now officially prohibits the sale and distribution of these mass killing machines and rapid-fire devices,” the Democratic governor JB Pritzker said as he signed the bill. He added: “We must keep fighting, voting and protesting to ensure that future generations will only have to read about massacres.”Illinois bans military-style weapons in win for gun control advocatesRead moreIn recent years, the US has seen a flurry of activity at the state level to combat gun violence, which the American Public Health Associations has classified as an epidemic. According to the Gun Violence Archive, guns claimed the lives of more than 44,000 Americans in 2022, including 24,000 who died by suicide. Gun safety groups say passing new laws like the Illinois assault weapons ban will become even more crucial in the coming months to address this issue: with Republicans now in control of the House of Representatives, the prospects for enacting additional federal gun legislation in the near future appear bleak.Republicans regained their majority in the House this month on the heels of one of the most successful years for the gun safety movement in decades. Last June, Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers and provided funding for mental health and violence intervention programs, among other initiatives. The passage of the BSCA marked the first time in nearly 30 years that the US Congress approved a major gun safety bill.“That’s just the beginning, and we’re just scratching the surface there,” said Zeenat Yahya, director of policy for the gun safety group March For Our Lives. “That’s not the end all, be all, but it was really exciting to see that progress.”Despite gun safety advocates’ demands for more action at the federal level, including a nationwide assault weapons ban, such reform will be difficult to achieve. Even if Senate Democrats manage to pass additional gun regulations, the newly elected House speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy, will be able to block those bills from receiving a vote in the lower chamber.While acknowledging the challenges posed by a divided Congress, Yahya dismissed suggestions that Republicans’ House majority eliminates the possibility of new federal laws. Biden could still issue executive orders on gun safety, and the passage of the BSCA demonstrated the possibility for bipartisan cooperation on the issue, she argued.“I do believe that there’s still opportunity regardless of the fact that obviously the House is under Republican control now,” Yahya said. “We want to be able to make sure that gun violence prevention is still at the forefront of a conversation, and we’re playing an active role at the federal level.”Still, Yahya agreed that reform at the state level has become “even more important with the Republican control of the House”. In the past year, states have already enacted a number of new gun laws championed by groups like March For Our Lives. According to the group Everytown for Gun Safety, at least 51 new laws aimed at reducing gun violence were passed in 2022, while dozens of bills backed by the gun lobby were defeated.New York’s legislative progress was a particular point of pride for gun safety advocates last year. The state passed a slate of gun proposals in the wake of the massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo, where a white supremacist fatally shot 10 Black shoppers and workers last May. In response, New York legislators raised the age requirement to purchase a long gun from 18 to 21. Lawmakers also established a code of conduct for gun dealers and closed a legal loophole regarding the ownership of high-capacity magazines.But New York’s efforts to reform its laws simultaneously underscored the significant challenges that the gun safety movement faces. Last June, the conservative-leaning supreme court struck down a New York law that placed strict regulations on carrying a firearm in public. In response to the court’s ruling, New York legislators enacted a new law that included an extensive list of sensitive places where guns would be prohibited – such as schools, medical facilities and government buildings. The new policy is now facing legal challenges, although the supreme court ruled Wednesday that the law can remain in effect for the time being.Gun safety advocates highlight New York’s legislative response to the supreme court’s ruling as a key example of how states can proactively address gun violence, even as federal legislation remains stalled.“This year, we’ll be doubling down on our efforts to go statehouse by statehouse to continue to pass life-saving laws,” said Monisha Henley, managing director of state government affairs at Everytown. “That is happening no matter what’s going on in DC.”If history is any indication, the policies now being advanced by state legislatures could one day filter up to the federal level. The BSCA included funding to help states establish “red flag laws,” which allow courts to temporarily confiscate guns from those considered a danger to themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have already enacted such policies. “As states are passing critical legislation around safe storage, background checks, red flags … it gives us the opportunity to ladder up at the federal level and say, hey, the majority of states are already doing this,” Yahya said.While advocacy press for more action at the state and federal levels, Americans continue to grapple with the daily reality of gun violence. According to Everytown, more than 110 Americans are killed with guns every day, and more than 200 are shot and wounded.Gun owners also make up a growing share of the US population, although they still represent a minority. Americans have bought roughly 150m firearms since the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. One recent study found that an estimated 6 million Americans carried a loaded handgun on a daily basis in 2019, compared to 3 million who said the same in 2015.In America’s capital city, a local nonprofit has started hanging posters reading “Thou shalt not kill” in a poetic attempt to combat the alarming rise in gun violence that has gripped Washington in recent years.The violence has made Henley and her allies more determined to enact reform across the country, and she predicted that 2023 would bring more change. After the midterm elections, four additional states – Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan and Minnesota – now have Democrats controlling both the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, clearing the way for lawmakers to pas new gun laws.“The states have been leading the way. They will continue leading the way,” Henley said. “[With] these brand new trifectas with gun safety majorities, there will be a lot of positive action that’ll continue to happen on this issue.”TopicsUS gun controlUS politicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesfeaturesReuse this content More